DistroWatch Weekly

A weekly opinion column and a summary of events from the distribution world

DistroWatch Weekly

DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 534, 18 November 2013

Welcome to this year's 46th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! The OpenBSD project is well known for its impressive security record. The open source operating system is popular on firewalls and servers where performance, stability and security are of the highest importance. Of course performance, security and stability are also great characteristics to have in a desktop operating system and, with that in mind, this week Jesse Smith tries out OpenBSD on his desktop system. Does the security-focused operating system work well as a desktop solution? Read on to find out. In our News section this week we cover Fedora's additional support for the ARM architecture and hear arguments for running Linux desktops in enterprise environments. Plus Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu, talks about recent missteps by both himself and Canonical, offering up explanations and apologies. In this issue of DistroWatch Weekly we will discuss how software is named and how to find out the proper command line names of applications which are assigned alternative labels by the desktop environment. We also cover the distribution releases of the past week and look forward to exciting new developments to come. We wish you all a great week and happy reading!

The OpenBSD project is one of the more interesting, though perhaps most overlooked, members of the BSD family. The OpenBSD operating system is probably best known for its impressive security record (only two remote security holes have been found in the default configuration in over a decade), but the project offers other important features. One is that OpenBSD comes with high quality and detailed documentation. In fact, the manual pages and website documentation are perhaps some of the best available in the open source world. Another great feature is the correctness, the clean implementation of OpenBSD. The operating system avoids clutter, avoids mess, avoids bugs of all sorts. This means that the core of OpenBSD is stable, secure and it is uncomplicated. These characteristics make OpenBSD a good operating system for web servers, file servers, routers and firewalls. In the past I tended to refer to OpenBSD in the context of server or network equipment, a less-flashy yet important realm. With the arrival of OpenBSD 5.4 I would like to examine how OpenBSD holds up in the role of a desktop solution.

The latest release of OpenBSD, version 5.4, contains a few new features and many bug fixes, most of them behind the scenes items. OpenBSD now supports Beagle (as in BeagleBoard and BeagleBone) and Octeon. The operating system has also gained support for Kernel Mode Setting. There have been numerous fixes and enhancements to existing tools, especially the OpenSSH secure shell service. This release of OpenBSD comes with over 7,800 ports of third-party software, including KDE 3.5.10, GNOME 3.8, Xfce 4.10, LibreOffice 4.0, Firefox 22 and Thunderbird 17. Builds of OpenBSD are available for over 20 supported architectures and I opted to download the 32-bit x86 build. The download for this build was approximately 220 MB in size.

Booting from the installation disc brings us to a text screen where we are invited to select one of three options. We can run the OpenBSD system installer, perform an upgrade of an existing installation or drop to a limited command line environment. The system installer presents a simple text interface where we are asked questions and type our answers. This may seem intimidating at first to new users, but OpenBSD's installer kindly presents sane defaults for almost all prompts. This means a new user can nearly complete the installation process by pressing Enter at each prompt. The installer walks us through confirming our keyboard's layout, selecting a hostname for our machine and configuring any detected network cards. We are then asked to create a password for the root user's account. The next series of steps allows us to choose which services to enable by default. These services include the OpenSSH secure shell service, a network time daemon and the X graphical service.

Then we are asked if we would like to create a regular user account. Disk partitioning comes next and here we are offered three options. We can let the installer divide up the disk for us, we can work on partitions manually or we can customize a suggested partition layout. After that we are asked where the installer can find the OpenBSD package files -- options include a CD, the local hard disk or a HTTP/FTP server. We can select which packages are installed on the system (I opted to install everything) and then files are copied to our disk. The last step in the process is to tell OpenBSD which time zone we are in. After that we can reboot the computer and enter into the world of running OpenBSD.

Since I had told the system installer I wanted to run the X graphical software, OpenBSD booted to a graphical login screen. Signing into my user account brought up a mostly empty graphical interface with a virtual terminal on the screen and a desktop switcher in the lower-right corner of the display. Clicking on any blank area of the desktop brought up an applications & settings menu. There are not many entries in this menu, just a few configuration options for the window manager, a few simple applications (such as the virtual terminal) and the option to logout. Should we explore the underlying system we can find a full set of command line utilities such as we would find on other BSD (or GNU/Linux) operating systems. The operating system comes with a small collection of command line games, the GNU Compiler Collection, a network time service and the OpenSSH secure shell. The operating system comes with detailed manual pages which cover available commands, configuration files and function calls.

Since OpenBSD ships with a fairly bare bones system, users interested in running a desktop environment will need to make use of the project's packages & ports system. OpenBSD, like other BSDs, allows users to install third-party software by downloading a collection of scripts and patches from the project's servers called ports. These ports allow the system to build and install third-party software, such as desktop environments and end-user applications. While the ports collection gives administrators a great deal of flexibility, the ports collection does require third-party software to be compiled from scratch. This can be a lengthy process and most users will probably prefer to use pre-built packages as this method is a lot faster. OpenBSD ships with a number of tools for working with these software packages. Unfortunately, the package utilities do not connect to OpenBSD's servers automatically and the administrator must manually select a package mirror to use. Once a mirror has been selected the administrator can add binary packages to the system using a tool called pkg_add. We can search for available software by downloading the aforementioned ports tree and performing searches against it.

Using the packages available on OpenBSD's servers I installed the Xfce desktop and several applications, including Firefox and the LibreOffice productivity suite. All the items I downloaded installed quickly and ran without any problems. It did take a little configuration work to get Xfce to start-up the way I wanted, but there were no problems with the packages themselves. In very short order I had a working desktop environment with fairly modern versions of popular applications. This allowed me to surf the web, look up documentation and write articles. The graphical interface was very responsive and I encountered no stability issues.

Above, I covered how to manage third-party software, such as Firefox, on the OpenBSD operating system. The base system itself (the core of OpenBSD) handles updates differently. The OpenBSD project occasionally releases patches and these need to be compiled and applied to the operating system. This process is longer and more involved than it is on FreeBSD or most Linux distributions, but the good news is the core of OpenBSD rarely needs to be patched.

I tried running OpenBSD in a VirtualBox virtual machine and on a physical desktop computer (dual-core 2.8 GHz CPU, 6 GB of RAM, Radeon video card, Realtek network card). I found OpenBSD worked well in both environments. The operating system was fast and stable and I encountered no problems. The operating system is extremely light with regards to memory usage, requiring only 30 MB for the default window manager and a mere 70 MB to run the complete Xfce desktop.

Compared with some other BSD systems and most Linux distributions, OpenBSD is not really geared toward running a desktop operating system. The operating system is not designed to be user-friendly, it is not designed to be automated or helpful. OpenBSD is designed to be secure and correct -- correct in the sense the system does what it says it will do and does so reliably. For these reasons not many people will flock to OpenBSD in the hope of using it to run their desktop and laptop computers. That being said, it is certainly possible to run OpenBSD as a desktop platform. In less than half an hour we can install the base system, install a light desktop environment and add a few applications, assuming we have a high-speed Internet connection. OpenBSD is highly reliable, it's very light on resources and there are very few updates to apply.

Some of the end-user software in the ports collection, such as Firefox, were out of date and this, in an odd twist, makes me wonder if security may be a concern for people running OpenBSD as a desktop system. All in all, it took more effort to get OpenBSD set up as a desktop system when compared against most Linux distributions. Plus the process was cryptic and very manual in its nature. However, once the initial work was done I didn't have to think about it anymore. OpenBSD ran very quickly, there were no notifications, no pop-ups, no nagging me to install updates and no stability concerns.

I don't think people will read this review and then rush to download OpenBSD in the hopes of running it on their laptop computers. OpenBSD is an acquired taste and probably best suited for people who are comfortable diving into the internals of their operating system. That being said, for the curious of mind, OpenBSD is ideal in two ways. First, the core operating system is very clean, it's simple and it's easy to navigate. The second benefit OpenBSD brings is its documentation. The manual pages are excellent, detailed and correct. This makes the project ideal for people who like to tinker and explore. I'd also like to mention a resource outside the OpenBSD project for people interested in trying the highly secure operating system: Absolute OpenBSD. I reviewed this book earlier in the year and found it to be a great source of tips and documentation.

Most people will still see OpenBSD as an operating system for servers and firewalls, but OpenBSD can also be used in desktop environments if the user doesn't mind a little manual work. The payoff is a very light, responsive system that is unlikely to ever misbehave.

The ARM architecture is becoming increasingly popular and support for the processor family is expanding. ARM processors are used in many small devices such as phones, tablets and hobbyist equipment. The Fedora distribution has had secondary support for ARM for a while now, but the architecture has not been given the priority of primary architecture status. That is about to change with the release of Fedora 20 which will see ARM become a primary architecture, developed on the same level as x86 spins of the distribution. Fedora is already used as a base for projects like the Raspberry Pi distribution Pidora and the additional support will make Fedora a better solution for ARM developers and hobbyists. Given that Fedora acts as a testing ground for technology which may end up in Red Hat's Enterprise Linux, this move also speaks well of Red Hat's future with regard to ARM-powered servers which are becoming more popular.

* * * * *

The Linux desktop has come a long way over the years, always growing more powerful and increasing friendly. Joseph Granneman says that Linux is now a good desktop solution, especially for enterprise deployments. "Now, with shrinking technology budgets and rising Microsoft licensing fees, it's time for IT to seriously consider desktop Linux deployment as an alternative to Windows. The timing for this couldn't be better: Windows 8.1 was just released, as was the latest version of Ubuntu, 13.10. Windows XP has just five months of support left, so companies need to make the switch to something new. Ubuntu may just have what companies need to support their desktop OS needs." Granneman goes on to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Ubuntu, looking at applications, cost, the user interface and support contracts. He concludes, "Ubuntu Linux has matured into a viable alternative to proprietary operating systems in the enterprise. The effort companies put into a Linux desktop replacement program will be worth the savings in licensing fees."

Canonical is well known in the Linux community for being experimental. Some people applaud Canonical for experimenting and trying new things with the Ubuntu distribution. Others regard Canonical's developments as breaking things which were not in need of fixing. Recently the company came under fire when Ubuntu's founder, Mark Shuttleworth, made some off the cuff comments and, shortly after, Canonical asked a blogger to make adjustments to their website to avoid using Canonical's trademarks. Shuttleworth blogged recently, addressing some of the concerns raised, saying: "Occasionally we make mistakes. When we do it's appropriate to apologize, address them, and take steps to ensure they don't happen again. Last week, someone at Canonical made a mistake in sending the wrong response to a trademark issue out of the range of responses we usually take. That has been addressed, and steps are being taken to reduce the likelihood of a future repeat." Shuttleworth goes on to talk about Canonical's trademarks and his recent comments in the face of community criticism.

Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith)

Menu names versus command line names

Guessing-a-name asks: I am just curious, what do developers consider in naming their software? Why are GStreamer's plug-ins "ugly", "good" or "bad"? Second question: why do some applications have names very different from the command? I wanted to tell my Claws-mail to open PDF files with Document Viewer because that is what I was seeing in Xfce's applications menu. Claws-mail did not know what that was. Only by Googling I found that the document viewer was known as "evince", and Claws-mail understood that. Last question: how do you get the command to launch an application when the common name is different from the command?

DistroWatch answers: Sometimes it can be hard to guess what thought process went into naming a piece of software. Without inside information it often looks as though a developer simply reached into a Scrabble bag and pulled out letters at random. However, with a little research we usually find software is named using an abbreviation or short-hand of some kind. For example, if you have LibreOffice installed on your system you may be aware you can launch it with the command soffice. Why soffice instead of loffice or libreoffice? Well, LibreOffice has gone through a number of name changes in its life time and was once called Star Office. The shortened name has stuck around over the years. As for GStreamer and its various add-ons, the "good", "bad" and "ugly", these names relate to the quality of the software or the licensing connected with the codecs included in each package. For example, the GStreamer "bad" package includes plug-ins which are not of high quality (either there is a problem with the code or documentation or the software needs testing). The "ugly" plug-in package contains software which may have distribution restrictions placed on it, for example copyright or patent issues may be involved if the software is re-distributed. The "good" branch of GStreamer contains high-quality software which can be legally redistributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License.

Moving along to the case of evince being labeled "Document Viewer", that is a little more straight forward. All applications have a name that gets used on the command line. This name is typically short, contains no spaces and may be an abbreviation. While this name is easy to type it may not be easy for a human to read and understand. The name evince is easy to type, but it doesn't give an overly clear description of the application's functionality. This is why many distributions relabel the software "Document Viewer". One is a formal, proper name and the other is selected to be easily read by humans.

As to how to find out what the formal, proper name of an application is, there are a few methods to try. One is to open your desktop environment's application menu editor. Find the application you want and click on it. The menu editor should show you the program's proper name, the name which appears in the application menu and a brief description. Another, somewhat crude, method to finding the proper name is to run a system monitor, like top, and launch the application you want to learn about. As you use the application in question its entry should move to the top of the system monitor's list of running processes. The system monitor will display the program's proper name rather than the label shown in the application menu.

Pat Riehecky has announced the release of Scientific Linux 5.10, a distribution built from source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.10 and enhanced with a variety of academic and scientific software applications: "Scientific Linux 5.10 is officially released for i686/x86_64." Users upgrading to this version should pay special attention to the MySQL package: "Scientific Linux 5.10 provides updated versions, specifically versions 5.1 and 5.5, of the MySQL packages as software collections. In order to migrate from MySQL 5.0 to 5.5, you must first update to MySQL 5.1. Note that the MySQL 5.1 packages are not supported and are provided only for the purposes of migration to MySQL 5.5. You should not use MySQL 5.1 on any of your production systems. As a result of this update, we will not issue any more security advisories for the MySQL 5.0 packages." Read the release announcement and release notes for further information.

Curtis Gedak has announced the availability of an updated release of GParted Live, version 0.16.2-11, a Debian-based specialist live CD with utilities for disk management and data rescue tasks: "The GParted team is proud to announce the availability of a new stable release of GParted Live. This release includes a number of improvements over the previous stable release including: fix freeze/lock problem at boot menu experienced by some computers; fix wrong name for Czech locale; updated Linux kernel to 3.11.7; updated bootloader isolinux and syslinux to 6.02 with patches for local boot; built with live-build 3; based on the Debian 'Sid' repository as of 2013-11-13." Here is the brief release announcement.

Kai Hendry has announced the release of Webconverger 22.0, the latest stable version of the project's Debian-based distribution for Internet kiosks: "Webconverger 22 release. For those wise people who are using the automatically upgrading install version, you should have received all the benefits below. So this new release will help keep bandwidth low for new install users, since they don't need to download upgrades up to this release from the previous 21.0 release. And as for the non-upgrading static live users, please upgrade to keep users abreast with the latest web technologies and security updates. What's new: grabdrag API for better touch screen support; Emoji fonts; Firefox 25 and Flash security updates. Please download the latest release and we would love to hear from you!" Here is the brief release announcement.

Ryan Finnie has announced the release of Finnix 109, a small Debian-based live Linux distribution designed for system administrators: "Finnix 109 released. Finnix 109 includes a number of new features and bug fixes. Linux kernel 3.10 is included, USB 3.0 boot support has been fixed, PowerPC G5 automatic fan and thermal control has been implemented, and 'nomodeset' is now passed by default, increasing boot compatibility on many Radeon graphics cards. Minimal build support has been added to Project NEALE Project NEALE, the system to build Finnix releases, has been extended with a new 'minimal' mode. This mode builds an ISO image with just enough software to start up and shut down, and excludes the hundreds of sysadmin utilities found on a normal Finnix ISO. Developers may use this as a base for their own software and utilities, rather than using the full Finnix releases." See the release announcement and release notes for more details.

Euan Thoms has announced the release of Kwheezy 1.4 incorporating another round of minor update in the Debian-based distribution that features the KDE desktop: "Version 1.4 is now available from the download page. This release is mostly a bunch a minor fixes and improvements to the out-the-box experience. Changes in version 1.4: fix for entering accents in LibreOffice (disable iBus by default); Firefox and Thunderbird 24 ESR are now default; cdrtools (original and best) replaces wodim and genisoimage as default burning and ISO image tools; Kopete and Linphone replace Jitsi as default XMPP chat and video calling; Kwheezy Autostart Chooser has additional choices, including iBus; Make KGet and Kopete 'always visible' in system tray by default; allow kwheezy-livecd package to be uninstalled without removing Kwheezy icon; disable transitions (effects) in KScreenSaver's slideshow, making it usable." Here is the brief release announcement with upgrade notes.

Alex Filgueira has announced the release of Antergos 2013.11.17, an Arch-based distribution featuring the latest GNOME 3 desktop: "The Antergos development team is pleased to announce the latest release of our live installation image, Antergos 2013.11.17. This image includes our latest improvements in Cnchi, our graphical installer with great new features. New options to expand the user configuration when installing the system and more stability and fixed bugs in Cnchi are the main characteristics of this new release. GNOME 3.10 is now available to be tested in our live ISO. As an extra, we are working to have some of the new GTK+ 3.10 goodies. Thanks to lots.0.logs we have new header style and some aesthetic changes in our 'language' screen." See the complete release announcement for more information and plenty of screenshots.

1 • OpenBSD 5.4, binray patches and updates (by Russell Willis on 2013-11-18 09:25:01 GMT from United Kingdom)
You mentioned about how much more involved updating and patching an OpenBSD system can be, I would recommend users interested look at the service provided by M:Tier the owners are OpenBSD developers and have done a fantastic job, https://stable.mtier.org/2 • I declare openSUSE(or SLED) the desktop king for enterprise (by Eric on 2013-11-18 09:44:59 GMT from Canada)
Cononical has screwed the wider community far too much, CentOS is a tad disconnected from RHEL even though basically equal, but SUSE has always been there for me while Ubuntu stole its desktop thunder 3-5 years ago.13.1 is SUSE's EverGreen(LTS) release so I consider it perfectly poised to be a REAL desktop OS for companies to actually deploy vs the Ubuntu shenanigans of late.Ubuntu can stay a crying temper-tantrum child aiming for tablets & phones in a 1/2 finished fashion, SUSE is the rightful heir to the linux desktop king's throne and has been stable and consistent in the background while Ubuntu took all the PR both good and bad for the past few years.Hopefully there will be a 13.1 Review on a future DWW.
3 • Mint Security (by viktor on 2013-11-18 09:45:36 GMT from France)
And let's wait for a full week to see how the discussion heats up about the (alleged) lack of security in Mint.Clem will have to provide a clean and sharp answer about the blocked and delayed security updates from upstream Ubuntu.

Personnaly I never experienced a kernel update that broke anything in the past 5y or so, and not pushing Firefox upgrades pronto is clearly a major issue.
4 • BSD, again, and again...... (by cai eng on 2013-11-18 09:56:54 GMT from United States)
"The OpenBSD project is one of the more interesting, though perhaps most overlooked, members of the BSD family."

Ok. I will accept this notion. As I read your review, I hope to learn WHY it is interesting. I will be curious, because Jesse has a habit of writing about one of the many BSD distros, every 6 weeks or so....

"The operating system was fast and stable and I encountered no problems. The operating system is extremely light with regards to memory usage, requiring only 30 MB for the default window manager and a mere 70 MB to run the complete Xfce desktop." In my opinion, a useful review would offer some actual TIME to boot, for example, on the same hardware, with Open BSD, and a couple of Linux distros, e.g. CrunchBang (my own favorite). Memory was a huge problem 40 years ago. Today it is utterly irrelevant. I would have prefered to read here, that Open BSD boots or executes well known task ABC, faster than Linux distros 1,2,3.Using very little memory, may be helpful to those not having 4 GB available. That hasn't been the case for more than ten years, though...Why wouldn't a distro, any distro, execute faster, if it used LOTS of memory, i.e. if the entire OS were installed into RAM, instead of hard drive or flash memory? I should think that using MORE memory, rather than less, were a desirable trait....

"All in all, it took more effort to get OpenBSD set up as a desktop system when compared against most Linux distributions. Plus the process was cryptic and very manual in its nature."

Thanks for that honesty, Jesse, it makes your review very credible, and worthy of our attention. However, what you needed to add, i.e. what is missing, in my opinion, is WHY, (given that it is hard work to install) one would find THIS particular OS "interesting". On the contrary, Jesse, you have explained, WHY is is "perhaps most overlooked". What would convert our bemusement, into genuine interest in trying Open BSD, is a few numbers, to show just what the payoff maybe for those willing to put in the time and effort to complete the installation. Just because it uses little memory, doesn't automatically translate into an OS that executes quickly.

I wish you would consider the advantage of presenting, instead of yet another BSD version, an entirely different OS, which, in my opinion, has a lot to offer, and is "perhaps most overlooked": http://kolibrios.org/en/

kolibrios, correct me, if I err, here, Jesse, but doesn't it mean: "hummingbird"? I have never used it. I have only read about it. But, it looks promising, and it would be terrific to have your assessment!cheers....
5 • OpenBSD dilemma (by VM on 2013-11-18 10:17:41 GMT from Ireland)
I played with OpenBSD from time tom time, I'd like to use it, but... On one hand you are highly advised to use packages over building an application from ports (http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq15.html#PkgVsPorts), which make sense. The package is already build, they know it works, it is tested, etc... On the other hand, the critical bug updates are NOT distributed in binary form (http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq10.html#Patches). Although I presume somebody in theirs team does build/test them. Outdated binary packages and having fun watching the build process for system updates. If you take some time to find answers for this little dilemma, you'll find out that they couldn't care less. Unless something like PC-BSD happens for OpenBSD, it won't be a desktop OS, nor a relevant one either (in terms o numbers). As for being relevant otherwise, there are corpses of other good projects killed by attitude (qmail). One day RedHat, IBM, insert your favorite giant name here, will flex its muscles into an openssl/openssh alternative. 5 years fast forward OpenBSD will be as good as dead, sadly.
6 • OpenBSD (by Nybronx on 2013-11-18 10:34:56 GMT from United States)
Good to see BSD get some notice. love the security inherent in the distro. Played with it but keep Mint as a boot option. One day though.
7 • Menu name vs. command line (by Jeff on 2013-11-18 11:01:05 GMT from )
This one-liner (?) should display menu-name to command-line relationships:

If the list is long, you can use the slash '/' command in "less" to search for keywords.
8 • PearOS.8 (by Joe on 2013-11-18 12:25:20 GMT from Mexico)
This week the 8th version of Pear OS was released. It is evident that the proyect Pear OS has reached its plenty maturity an development. Many Linux user do not like some distros that imitate the look and feel of Mac OS, but it is only personal likeness, For me like for many people, Mac is the pinnacle of beauty in desktop design... But of course Linux is the BEST operative system of the world for its security, stability, freedom, high performance and the biggest amount of high quality software developed for it. Pear OS has like base two Gigants: Debian Wheezy and Ubuntu Raring-Ringtail, So... (at least for me) Why not to have the best of two worlds? I already installed PearOS-8 in may desktops and laptops, I only changed the mouse cursor and the background to a truly Mac, and...W O W ! ... Congrats and many many many thanks to the Francoise team lidered by David Tavares !9 • fvwm (by Omari on 2013-11-18 12:29:54 GMT from United States)
Is that fvwm for the default OpenBSD window manager? It looks like they even used fvwm with XFCE.10 • OpenBSD for troglodytes (by Paraquat on 2013-11-18 12:51:04 GMT from Taiwan)
I used OpenBSD for awhile about 10 years ago. It felt outdated even then, but recently I decided to install the latest version and was amazed that not much had changed.

First the installer - the most primitive one you'll ever see - does have sane defaults provided that you want to devote your whole hard drive to OpenBSD. Or alternatively, you can do as Jesse did and use virtualization, which immediately blows a big hole in OpenBSD's much ballyhooed security (not to mention hurting performance). Dual-booting a hard disk so that you can run OpenBSD plus at least one other OS is very tricky with that crap installer - so tricky that even the OpenBSD web site admits it. It's also admitted in the book "Absolute OpenBSD" - the first edition at least walked you through the process, but the second edition (recently published) just gives up and suggests you install a second hard drive in your computer.

But OK, you succeed in getting it installed, and take great satisfaction in how secure it is, right? Except it's not secure the minute you decide to install any programs which are not part of the meager "base install." As Jesse noted, install Firefox, and it's way out of date and lacking badly needed security updates. Ditto for most every other program you install. OpenBSD is secure only if you want to look at the blinking command prompt - try to use it as a desktop and it's not secure at all.

I know I'm being harsh, but OpenBSD deserves it. The folks who use OpenBSD are fiercely defensive about their favorite OS - which is fine, except that I get tired of their smug insistence that they are light years ahead of Linux (not to mention FreeBSD) in security. Maybe they were at one time (debatable), but they are certainly light years behind now.
11 • BSD Bad, Makes Me Sad (by Buckethead on 2013-11-18 13:15:06 GMT from United States)
Where do I begin? I dunno, just please stop with the BSD on the desktop reviews. BSD belongs on servers, and even that is changing to Ubuntu. Review Netrunner, or PearOS 8, or Makulu, why BSD all the time? It's not interesting...really...not.12 • @2 opensuse king! (by Bob on 2013-11-18 13:17:37 GMT from Germany)
openSUSE 13.1 is as buggy as always and openSUSE is just a Sergeant in Linux army and not a king. It's 2013 and you need to boot it with "nomodeset" because it doesn't work on legacy and new Intel bases computers. Dbus-daemon problem is still there (after 2 years) and it makes your CPU work 100%. When you report the problem they tell you that "it is free" and you can use windows!!13 • I agree with Eric (#2) (by Shawn on 2013-11-18 14:07:03 GMT from United States)
I still download and burn the newest releases of Ubuntu, but the last time I've actually used or installed Ubuntu was version 11.10. I won't get into the wars about desktop environments and which ones are better (I'm a Gnome fan.. Gnome 2.6 to be precise, but I do like LXDE, XFCE, Openbox, Gnome3, KDE3/4 and E17 lol I like a lot of them I guess?!)

I noticed that the quality of the releases were not as good as previous ones and also the supporting lifecycle decreased as well. With openSUSE, you'll be getting around 2 years of support for each release and there's a lot that comes with openSUSE on the management end of things. The only thing I dislike about openSUSE is the choice of package management.. RPM. I've been a Linux user since 2002 and grew up on Red Hat, Slackware and Mandriva. I've been through "RPM-hell" on many an occasion and it's not something I'd recommend, but I've had far better outcomes using openSUSE and SLES/SLED than I have with Scientific, RHEL 5/6, and Fedora in terms of installing a program and that program not installing all of its dependencies.

openSUSE is a very polished and well-tested distribution and I'm anxious for 13.1 to release today at some point. I can only wish openSUSE would be based on Debian someday! :) can't argue with the tried and true apt-get.. but I do love zypper and YaST. Even after 11 years of Linux, it's still fresh and ever-changing. I never thought 5 years ago I'd consider installing and using openSUSE over Ubuntu but my how the times have changed.14 • OpenBSD Screenshots running XFCE4 and FVWM (by Scott on 2013-11-18 14:34:50 GMT from United States)
The Screenshots show the desktop switcher from FVWM, an Xterm with the default FVWM color scheme and elements of the XFCE. I suspect XFCE was started from FVWM.

As you mentioned, OpenBSD's Documentation is excellent and it does contain guidelines on how to clean this up.

Briefly review the /usr/local/share/doc/pkg-readmes/*.15 • @13: openSUSE 13.1 (by k_tz on 2013-11-18 14:54:11 GMT from Germany)
OpenSUSE 13.1 has an unofficial support of only 18 months, but it will be supported by the openSUSE Evergreen community for an additional 18 months up to November 2016. So openSUSE 13.1 will have a support window of 3 years in total. Please see: http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Evergreen.16 • openSUSE is saner (by Eric Yeoh on 2013-11-18 15:22:19 GMT from Malaysia)
I love Fedora, adore CentOS for its stability but when it comes to desktop I always choose the Geeko simply because it just works with my stuff and doesn't kill my wifi or connections with every upgrade. For instance - it's 2013 and still Fedora has issues with MTP phones - in Geeko I just plugin my Xperia phone and it just works. I do not feel animosity towards any distro and I think distro wars are just stupid. I dislike Unity but Xubuntu and Lubuntu are also pretty nice. And yeah - Fedora's disk partitioner during installation is just mind boggling. Kinda like you need to prove you are leet enough before you can use it.17 • Two cents worth (by Keith on 2013-11-18 16:34:15 GMT from United States)
#13 Shawn: "the last time I've actually used or installed Ubuntu was version 11.10."

The last Ubuntu I ran was 10.10 and then Mint 10. After those releases, the Ubuntu world started going downhill fast.

I'm not a fan of KDE or Xfce. My favorite post-gnome DT is LXDE, but dependable stand-alone LXDE distros are disappearing fast! Lubuntu 11.04 was the last good LXDE distro. I recently downloaded and tested Lubuntu 13.10 only to discover the exact same bugs are still present from the fresh new slew of problems launched in the Lubuntu 11.10 release. (Shaking my head in haughty derision.) So I gave Manjaro LXDE and Openbox a fair run (Pacman is a piece of cake to learn). I like these Arch distros enough to keep, but unfortunately they have there own set of dependability problems.

So where does that leave me? Happily committed to CrunchBang forever! This is the most dependable and well built distro I've ever used. Debian STABLE! Nuff said.18 • openBSD (by albinard on 2013-11-18 17:05:11 GMT from United States)
@10: "First the installer - the most primitive one you'll ever see" Whassamatta, you don't like ncurses? It may be primitive, but it gets the job done, and yuou can back up any time and do it differently if you don't like what it's doing.19 • BSD and Newbies (by LinuxMan on 2013-11-18 17:21:31 GMT from United States)
I have to agree with several people who say that BSD is not a good environment for the desktop. PC-BSD comes about as close to a viable system that desktop BSD can get but BSD is still not meant for the desktop. That's okay because the BSD developers don't really care.

For some reason there seems to be an openSuse and Ubuntu debate going on. openSuse has it own bunch of bugs and problems so people don't really to try to push the Suse is so great junk. The same thing goes for the Ubuntu users also. They both have their problems. It also seems to me that one of the biggest problems that a lot of people here have is trying to install new software on old hardware. When you see post where someone pops up and says, "I installed Ubuntu 5.04 on this old hardware but it won't run Ubuntu 13.10. Boy, Ubuntu has really fallen." (just an example) That's the way a lot of these newbies come across. I see most of the problems caused by ones who don't know how to set up a Linux distro or how to choose the proper distro for their hardware. Maybe a good article on choosing a distro is needed. :)20 • openSUSE 13.1 (by Antony on 2013-11-18 17:23:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
First tried SuSE back in version 5 something. Kept trying it over the years. Really wanted to like it but never seemed quite right somehow - although it seemed to offer so much.

Early days, but openSUSE 13.1 seems really, really good :)21 • Menu-Command Line Relationships (by fstephens on 2013-11-18 17:58:45 GMT from United States)
@7 Jeff, I like your one-liner. Thanks!22 • @17Two cents worth (by mandog on 2013-11-18 18:15:04 GMT from Peru)
"So I gave Manjaro LXDE and Openbox a fair run (Pacman is a piece of cake to learn). I like these Arch distros enough to keep, but unfortunately they have there own set of dependability problems."

Thats because You don't learn to use them. arch and its respins all inherit the ability of never needing to reinstall. but you have to be able to learn what you are doing.arch itself is the best of all. you can't break arch if you are willing to learn, It is a very low maintenance distro if you are bright enough to read the forum main pageif intervention is required unlike a GUI, you just copy paste the commands, But that's to much of a brainer for most readers of this site.Ubuntu you guys want to go to the forum and see how much does not work in ubuntu and all the comments on testing breakages before making bold statements.23 • BSD (by Dave Postles on 2013-11-18 18:19:54 GMT from United Kingdom)
GhostBSD is fine with XFCE DE. It had issues along the way to the RC, but the final release works just fine. The dock in XFCE is very flexible.

OpenSuSE - I don't like the association with M$.

OpenMandriva - the RC has retained only the KDE menu, but you can use the classic menu which I prefer (it is smaller). The Rosa taskbar at the bottom looks like a dock when it is reduced in size and centred. IMHO, the DE and the artwork are superior to Mageia.24 • Handy Linux website. (by Ray on 2013-11-18 18:30:41 GMT from United States)
It might be useful to note for anyone interested in Handy Linux that the website and forums are entirely in french with no apparent way to switch to another language. I have no idea if other languages will be or are supported on the iso.25 • KaOS, and other musings... (by cflow on 2013-11-18 19:07:48 GMT from United States)
From curiosity, I checked out the KaOS website. It's quite interesting how they built their distribution - it sounds quite similar to Chakra. But their disclaimer and goals give it a sense of humility:

-----"There is no goal to make the most possible software available, KaOS will stay limited in size of the repositories, and will work on quality instead of quantity. That goal makes it clear, a large user base is not what is intended or expected."-----

This reminded me of how Ikey Doherty, after closing SolusOS, got criticized for making a new media player - "reinventing the wheel," and other things. The responce: He was only doing it for himself anyways...

And OpenBSD: Their goal isn't to please everyone - just to make the most stable and secure OS. People, though criticize them for being isolated from Linux, and being outdated.

The point? Well, they are exerting the rights to freely making and using software on their own, for themselves, and not for a larger organization. I got a question for all of you: Are they selfish for doing this? Or, are we ourselves being selfish telling them to work for the higher-ups, the Ubuntu/Fedora's of this world?

Remember, when someone exerts their freedoms to this world, they can too often conflict with other people's freedoms. I wish more people here could understand this...26 • Really? (by DistrowatchisDead on 2013-11-18 19:16:38 GMT from Germany)
Its amazing how the haters have multiplied in the linuxverse recently. It's ironic that the progress made into average user land (adoption) in the past few years can be attributed to the same word that'll send the Canonical haters into a frenzy that would embarrass a spoiled teen aged brat - Ubuntu. One mention of the word is enough to bring out criticisms that are so comical one has to wonder what exactly is going on. Of all the distros out there you have people here saying SUSE is better for enterprise and in the same breath claim that "Cononical" has screwed the community? WTF? Are linux users of today forgotten or is there something else going on? https://www.suse.com/partners/alliance-partners/microsoft/27 • 17 • Two cents worth (by Keith (by Ika on 2013-11-18 19:30:01 GMT from Spain)
Have you tried PCLinuxOS' LXDE?28 • Mix it up & try BSD (by M.Z. on 2013-11-18 19:38:58 GMT from United States)
I like when things are mixed up a little and a BSD or some other non Linux OS gets a review on distrowatch. Not that my opinion on the subject matters because tracking and examining BSD type systems is explicitly what DW does anyway. Not only are BSDs tracked here, but up at the top of the site next to the DW branding & logo there is a phrase: 'Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.'. This slogan also appears at the top of your browser window when you visit the site. If you hate BSD for some reason, well maybe you shouldn't visit a website that makes it explicit that they want to examine both BSD and Linux. Complaining about someone doing what they said they would is just goofy, so if you don't like the topic don't read the review, just skip down to the news section and read the review for next week.29 • RE: Linux Desktop In The Enterprise (by :wq on 2013-11-18 20:03:08 GMT from United States)
Mr Granneman's article fails to take into account the availability of Windows 7. While some arguments still hold (such as those regarding licensing costs), other arguments (such as those regarding the interface) become weaker. With Windows 7 extended support lasting until 2020-01-14, I imagine some organizations will go that route, for those that haven't pulled the trigger already. Some might even try waiting until previews of Windows 9 (which will probably still be horribly constipated, I mean converged) become available before making a decision, if in the intervening months there is a definitive statement made that Windows 9 will be released in 2014. Technically Windows 7 end-of-retail-sales date (not including preinstalls) was 2013-10-30, but it is still readily available for purchase and probably will be for a bit. This post is not an endorsement of Windows, just pointing out a potential consideration.30 • OpenBSD (by Barnabyh on 2013-11-18 20:16:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
It may be nice but you could also run CRUX and basically get the same with a base and ports system etc., rolling and with the advantage? that you're still running linux and there should be more packages available without needing a compatibility layer or running outdated Firefox.My personal favourite if you want to run a distro that will be compiling everything from a source tree. Far simpler than Gentoo. More like a Slackware install that installs only the basics without X applications in around 250MB which then eventually also is replaced as all updates to the base system also are compiled on your machine as they come out.Great fun if you have the time.31 • PS (by :wq on 2013-11-18 20:20:30 GMT from United States)
I also can't figure out why Mr Granneman makes mention of Ubuntu 13.10, instead of 12.04 or the upcoming 14.04. If vendor support is a consideration, what organization wants a release that only has a support period of 9 months?32 • XP (by MoreGee on 2013-11-18 21:02:56 GMT from United States)
XP is already slowly being killed off by each "Security" update. After the last one 3rd party apps can not check for updates (ie. HP, Nero, CDDB). Also I am seeing issue connecting to other work group computers and SMB shares. You already can not clean re-install or roll back security changes. It already should be considered abandonware. When VLC & Firefox go that will be the end of it.33 • OpenBSD (by Semiarticulate on 2013-11-18 21:06:20 GMT from United States)
@1 Thanks for the link. I was not aware of that service. Most helpful.34 • OpenBSD tried and true (by Gilbert Sanford on 2013-11-18 22:01:09 GMT from United States)
There is no dilemma . . . by the developers for the developers . If you can use it, great! If not, that's great, too! There is no question about security . . . "two remote holes in a heck of a long time" is simply true.

We all misunderstand what we do not know. As I type this in Firefox 25 (I'm running OpenBSD -current -- if you do not know what -current means, visit www.openbsd.org for more information,) I am mindful of the OpenBSD learning curve that never goes away, and I can understand why so many would spare themselves the discipline required. What does a desktop mean, though, from one user to the next? I, for one, cannot escape the seductive allure of the world's premiere development platform that is known as OpenBSD. No matter what I'm doing, cwm, tmux, nvi, and openssh (all included in the base installation!) are there to wrap their loving arms around my greatest ideas and bring my creativity to gentle, peaceful fruition.

I have wasted a lot of time playing with Linux variants of one kind or another, and, yes, some things Linux makes mighty easy, but I do not regret one minute with OpenBSD. I learned the old-fashioned hard way from scratching my own head, and I made it mine. I am reminded of a statement by J. Gresham Machen in “New Testament Greek for Beginners” in my first year of Biblical Greek about 15 years ago:

“Everything is easy once the student has thoroughly mastered it.”

That's the heart of OpenBSD.

Gilbert35 • OpenBSD Review (by anon on 2013-11-18 22:19:43 GMT from Venezuela)
I appreciate the fact that OpenBSD is getting a review. But i have to make some critics:

Was the reviewer aware that the default wm/de in use is called fvwm. Have the reviewer ever used fvwm? The way it is described it seems like it was some weird unknown wm/de.

Second, what's the deal with second and third screenshots? That really looks horrible, it's xfce running within fvwm? and that fvwm border at the right and bottom border of the desktop? This certainly makes the readers think that the reviewer doesn't know what he was doing, i'm afraid to say.

That said, i thank the fact of bringing some variety to the reviews with this bsd variant, i'd like to see a netbsd review next please ;)36 • Distro King (by Kuno on 2013-11-18 22:54:30 GMT from Germany)
I declare Crunchbang (!#) the king of all distros. It does everything you want - even in enterprise. Arppps, forgot: it's stable...37 • @36 - no kings here (by M.Z. on 2013-11-18 23:28:18 GMT from United States)
@36What you expect me to use open box because you like #!? There can be no king of all distros because there are too many of them that do too many specific jobs, and to pretend that something with openbox is best of all is absurd to KDE & Cinnamon users like me. Of course the same could be said of a KDE based distro if you're looking for something light. Debian has all the different desktops that most people could want, and it can fit most needs, but I still don't think it could be crowned king of anything even if it comes closer than any other. There are a few distros in the running for most popular, easiest to use, or best at some task, but there can be no king in open source, just a community.38 • BSD (by David McCann on 2013-11-18 23:57:44 GMT from United Kingdom)
I'm not a system administrator, but if I were I'd want something that had automated installation, like SUSE's AutoYast, Red Hat's Kickstart, or Solaris's Jumpstart. If the statement "not designed to be automated" is true, then setting up a building full of computers with BSD would be a very long job.

So, if it's of little use in an enterprise situation and not recommended for the home user, what's BSD really good for? Who uses it? A survey (W3techs) reported that "BSD is used by 1.1% of all the websites whose operating system we know." Of course the servers that won't disclose their OS may all be running BSD, but somehow I doubt it.39 • @24: More on Handy Linux (by eco2geek on 2013-11-19 00:02:25 GMT from United States)
The distro itself can be started up in English simply by changing the "keyboard" parameter to "us" and the locale to "en_US.UTF-8" -- but once you're in Xfce, the Welcome screen's in French, as is their customized application menu (which they use instead of Xfce's default application menu).

It'd be pretty nice to see everything translated into English, as it appears that a lot of time and effort has gone into making this a "newbie-friendly" distro (including tons of documentation). The look 'n' feel is unique, too.

Time to dust off that college French.40 • not ncurses (by Paraquat on 2013-11-19 00:10:16 GMT from Taiwan)
@18...

@10: "First the installer - the most primitive one you'll ever see" Whassamatta, you don't like ncurses? It may be primitive, but it gets the job done, and yuou can back up any time and do it differently if you don't like what it's doing.

Have you ever installed OpenBSD? It doesn't do ncurses. It was, in fact, one of my suggestions to the OpenBSD mailing list 10 years ago that they should support ncurses...I was crucified for even suggesting it. And I doubt that I was the first. If you want to know what it's like to receive a barrage of hate mail, just go on their list and suggest that the OpenBSD installer ought to use ncurses instead of command prompts.

This is what the OpenBSD installer looks like (one line example):

"Do you want the X Window System to be started by xdm(1)? [no] y"

Looks simple enough, provided you always choose the default. Choosing something other than the default (like sharing the hard drive with another OS) can lead to such a complicated mess that you might want to take the advice of the author of "Absolute OpenBSD" and just buy a second hard disk. Except most people won't do that, they'll instead just remove the OpenBSD installation CD and forget it. Which is why OpenBSD gets so few people willing to even install it and see what it's like.

Of course, you can do what Jesse did and use virtualization, but then you hurt performance and blow a big hole in the air-tight security.

I persevered and did get it installed in its own partition, without trashing my Linux partition. However, I was pretty disappointed by what I found. At least as a desktop OS, it's great if you're satisfied with Linux circa 1995. It has more potential as a server, but if that's what I wanted I'd go with FreeBSD which offers much better performance and scalability. The market must agree with me, because you can find hosting services that offer FreeBSD servers, but OpenBSD is noticeable for its absence. Of course, there are no doubt a few hobbyists who run OpenBSD on their home servers, but they don't need to support heavy traffic like one normally finds on a busy web site.

OpenBSD as a firewall - yes, that's probably its greatest strength. Though I'm not sure it's really any better than FreeBSD for that purpose. It's notable that there is at least one commercial vendor, Juniper Networks, that builds routers on JUNOS which is a commercial variant of FreeBSD. I'm not aware of anyone doing that with OpenBSD, though if there is such a vendor I'd be happy to hear about it.

Now I don't mind at all if people want to run OpenBSD - it can be fun and educational. True geeks will probably find it an interesting experiment. I'm glad I tried it. Just be prepared for disappointment if you were expecting that OpenBSD is going to be the end-all be-all desktop (or even server) OS.41 • @35 • OpenBSD Review (by mandog on 2013-11-19 00:20:16 GMT from Peru)
No you are so wrong its 1 of the oldest DE in existence if you want light this is it. still used today by arch if you only download the xserver,. terminal only no borders but when coupled to Cristalfvwm the whole lot is 5.5mb its a full featured distro that is very customizable42 • The Problems with BSD as a Desktop (by WindowsIsAnnoying on 2013-11-19 02:39:12 GMT from Thailand)
1. No Flashplayer support in any browser. Yes, I know it's not secure but as a Desktop user I want it. I did google for a solution but the ones they give are out of date(a firefox plugin that could have helped was removed)

2. No video acceleration.

GhostBSD has flashplay 10 so youtube is OK but most XXX sites will want you to use flasplayer 11 :(

The great point about FreeBSd and OpenBSD (And Solaris clones) is that they handle low memeory situations gracefully. You can quickly switch to a terminal and kill memory hogs. Linux has failed in this dpeartment leavoing you waiting waiting waiting for the terminal to appear. UPDATE: Kernel 3.12 has promised improvement here so maybe finally we will see a robust linux desktop.43 • BSD or GNU/Linux - your choice (by Eric Yeoh on 2013-11-19 02:46:55 GMT from Malaysia)
Who really gives a hoot what you decide to run on your desktop - be it BSD or GNU/Linux? When I switched to GNU/Linux in 2000, people were also questioning the usability (and sanity) of GNU/Linux as a desktop OS. Freedom is not only about what you can do but also allowing others to have a choice as well.44 • XP, 32 (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2013-11-19 03:21:13 GMT from United States)
Xable hasn't updated the SP3 Update Pack since 2012 December 12 06:38 - but then, it only gets useful updates. A "security" update can break something - that's why it's wise to receive notification, and use it to look for reviews thereof, make a total backup copy (shadow?), and test.

XP, well-trained (think nLite + DriverPacks), has served as a robust platform for years, on hardware that doesn't play well for 7 or 8 but just keeps on running, supporting freeware, donationware, adware and shareware.45 • Linux vs. BSD (by Microlinux on 2013-11-19 04:31:38 GMT from France)
If you want to have the best of both the Linux and the BSD world, just run Slackware.46 • @ 8 • PearOS.8 - Joe (by Chanath on 2013-11-19 05:14:54 GMT from Sri Lanka)
While I applaud David Tavares for his persistence in making more and more Pear OSs, this no. 8 has a bit of a problem, which most of the "reviewers" had not found, or care to find out. The Launcher won't open more than the 21 applications on the first page, and won't go to the other two pages. This time the Launcher works only in the root mode. If you open the /usr/share/applications/launcher as root, it'd open fully, but if you open it in the user mode, it won't.

I hope, David would find a way out of this. I have reinstalled the Launcher and also installed the "old Slingshot" launcher, but the results were the same. As I like David's work, I wish luck in finding out what's wrong with the Launcher. Pear OS 8 is a very good, snappy distro, even with this slight problem.47 • Ubuntu (by Anonymous Coward on 2013-11-19 06:07:53 GMT from United States)
When you read this -

Joseph Granneman says that Linux is now a good desktop solution, especially for enterprise deployments. "Now, with shrinking technology budgets and rising Microsoft licensing fees, it's time for IT to seriously consider desktop Linux deployment as an alternative to Windows...."

OpenBSD should support acceleration for Intel HD graphics as of 5.4.
49 • Pear 8 (by wolf on 2013-11-19 10:20:24 GMT from Germany)
Dear Chanath, I do not know what you are talking about in my user account pear os8 launcher already has 4 Pages and no problem switching to one. But there is one problem which has to do with missing categories. 75 Icons, scattered without any sense or order, over 4 Pages makes using the launcher a drag therefore I don't use it at all problem solved.

Bye Wolf50 • Canonical and Microsoft (by bubba on 2013-11-19 11:31:50 GMT from Poland)
@26Canonical likes Microsoft too, eg:http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/canonical-partners-with-microsoft-to-support-ubuntu-on-azure/51 • PearOS-8 (by Joe on 2013-11-19 13:56:15 GMT from Mexico)
@46@49 Many thanks for your tips. I use the launcher only like my favorites, and I make a bookmark in nautilus to Applications (/user/share/applications). another possible think to do is to add a categorized menu to the gnome3 panel. my unique problem is the recognizing of some realteck usb wifi adapters. but in my machines with included anthenas in the motherboard o of course with wired conection I can work very well with no one bug. the two solyd roks that Pear8 has like base are marvelous (Debian and Ubuntu)52 • @17 - LXDE distros (by Hoos on 2013-11-19 15:43:21 GMT from Singapore)
"My favorite post-gnome DT is LXDE, but dependable stand-alone LXDE distros are disappearing fast! Lubuntu 11.04 was the last good LXDE distro...."

I'm not that sure what you mean by "standalone", but have you tried WattOS?

It's made to be lightweight and it works well on old computers. I have Crunchbang as well, but really like WattOS. No fuss, no muss.53 • OpenBSD is interesting (by Arkanabar on 2013-11-19 15:59:20 GMT from United States)
@ cai eng, #4: My current laptop has 2GB of RAM, shared between video and system. Until about four months ago, my desktop had 2GB of system RAM. That's a heck of a lot more recent than ten years ago. And Jesse has explained why OpenBSD could be interesting: correctness, a clean install, stability, security, ease of exploration and tinkering b/c of its uncomplicated core, and truly top-notch documentation. Now, those may not be interesting to you (they don't interest me enough to install), but we're not everyone. Lots of FLOSS enthusiasts (e.g., Gilbert Sanford at #34) find all of those things very interesting indeed.54 • @ 49 • Pear 8 - wolf (by Chanath on 2013-11-19 16:49:19 GMT from Sri Lanka)
Dear Wolf, I didn't say Pear 8 is a bad distro. It is a very good distro. It looks like David had done some corrections and re uploaded the distro. I wrote to him immediately. If you have read my comments on Pear 8 last week, you'd notice that I like David's persistence. David takes to heart any comments and make his distro work even better.

If you look at all the reviews of Pear OS, the reviewers had the same problem, even though they didn't dig into it. You can see the screenshot of the Launcher in all the reviews, most probably before David corrected the problem. And, if there is no problem, then that's excellent. I'd await Pear 9 too.55 • OpenBSD (by tuxtest on 2013-11-19 22:18:58 GMT from Canada)
OpenBSD is designed for some insider. Just the installation mode is worthy is totally obsolete. If the developers of all BSD system (excluding PC-BSD) really wanted to attract new user, make them easy to install the base system. 99% of users will need: an office manager, a browser, an office suite and unfortunately flashplayer default a good alternative.So why make complicated when you can do simple.

A good example is Archlinux: Manjaro has passed Arch on stat distrowatch. Simply because we have a complete system without having to working hard one week to have the same functional system at the end.

I agree that OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD is excellent for server but not on the desktop, They should leave falls. It wasting their time and they are too far behind Linux.

this is my opinion

regard56 • @55 correction (by tuxtest on 2013-11-19 22:25:26 GMT from Canada)
I wanted to write desktop manager NOT office manager57 • #2 OpenSUSE (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2013-11-19 23:46:19 GMT from United States)
This nomination was (at least) one day) premature, more so if expecting up-to-date documentation. Still expecting people to burn plastic discs or waste flash storage space, still offering only maxi-bling spins to start. Wasn't the KIWI MBRID boot option broken with version 12? Still not fixed.

But then, Mageia has a similar lackadasical-ness ...58 • @55 (by mandog on 2013-11-19 23:52:33 GMT from Peru)
@55 Simply because we have a complete system without having to working hard one week to have the same functional system at the end.It takes 1hr to install and have a complete desktop openbox/xfce in archlinux don't exaggerate? It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so59 • OpenBSD not viable on my system (by Thomas Mueller on 2013-11-20 03:02:53 GMT from United States)
I've tried OpenBSD with the live USB (http://liveusb-openbsd.sourceforge.net/), have 5.3 but haven't yet downloaded 5.4. This is a good way, assuming you have good broadband, to see what OpenBSD is like without disrupting your present system.

OpenBSD can't access my GPT-partitioned hard drive, also has no support for USB 3.0. NetBSD works better than OpenBSD on my system but not as good as FreeBSD and Linux. OpenBSD and NetBSD still use preconfigured (MAKEDEV) device nodes such as FreeBSD and Linux had many years ago. It's annoying when I can't mount a partition or USB stick because the device node is not there.

With OpenBSD live USB, using GNOME, mouse pointer was invisible, but I knew it was there albeit hidden because parts of the desktop became active or inactive depending on mouse movements.60 • BSD system (by tuxtest on 2013-11-20 04:06:40 GMT from Canada)
@58 Yes I exaggerate in the case of Arch.What I mean is this: We often hear the argument that spend hours seeing some days are set system is a good thing. I doubt it because in 95% of cases it comes down to it install the desktop environment, and probably some software and flash for the web.The other 5% of users are people who have the knowledge to do what they want from their PC.Actually OpenBSD , NetBSD , FreeBSD versus Linux , they have little to offer in comparison.

PC-BSD team work hard to effort and make the experience simple BSD desktop. But the problem of PC-BSD is that one version to another stability is uneven. PBI system is a good idea but it's really heavy and many time buggy. On BSD system, just mount, unmount a simple USB data key is complicated. So you can imagine the rest. PC-BSD after 8 years of existence cannot really consider for daily use without bad surprises.

In conclusion, each BSD system have his own small communauty a boy club for the fun. But it's not a really alternative for the Desktop. They have too much behind other operating systems to be a real alternative.

For me BSD system is as a wedding singer . It does the job to entertain the guests, but will not become a star. Unless polish is voice, change manager, look and music slyle.

regard61 • BSD (by Anonymous Coward on 2013-11-20 04:47:40 GMT from United States)
Using FreeBSD on a traditional desktop computer is a lot of initial work to set up, but after that it's fairly easy in many cases.

Laptops are another matter entirely. That's all I use at home, and while I would love to use a BSD, there is just no logical reason to do it. Considering that suspend/resume is highly unlikely to work, non-Nvidia graphics support is dodgy, wireless drivers are difficult to optimize, and full touchpad functionality is a crapshoot.... well, there are more productive ways to spend your time and get the most out of your laptop's potential.

There are certainly cases where people have made it work, but it's not typical.

And unfortunately, I doubt this will ever change for the BSD's. Which is a shame, because it is fun to use when it works.62 • (by Wow on 2013-11-20 06:25:52 GMT from United States)
I don't get all of the hate for OpenBSD. Maybe the screenshots of the OS aren't pretty enough?

Versus other BSD's: I can run Gnome 3.8 perfectly on my OpenBSD laptop, which is incidentally, also the version used in the latest Fedora. OpenBSD is the only *BSD operating system that supports KMS on Intel without fucking up, and can resume/suspend with no problems. It is the source of a large portion of Wifi drivers for all of the *BSDs and Linux. And it has been this way for many years, not any of this "download the bleeding edge kernel, add lines to make.conf to get it to pull patches to Xorg, don't switch back to console after starting Xorg or it will lock up your system, etc."

Versus Linux distributions: Manpages provide complete documentation of every part of the operating system, from user commands to system APIs. No PulseAudio or over-engineered *Kits to learn only to see them shelved over another college student's hobby in 18 months. No broken bootloader that can be overwritten from its own command line making full disk encryption vulnerable to keyloggers (GRUB2).

It is a clean, simple, minimalist design. It's like choosing to drive a 79 F-150 over a newer car, because you know it works, you know HOW it works, and you are safe from the whims of the industry.
63 • @ 49 • Pear 8 - wolf (by Chanath on 2013-11-20 07:30:19 GMT from Sri Lanka)
Dear Wolf, I downloaded Pear 8 64 bits again, but the Launchpad problem is not solved yet. It doesn't work fully in the user mode, showing only one page of the menu. This modification of the "old" Slingshot is not at all good, as it shows mixture of apps all over the pages (only in the root mode). The unmodified old Slingshot has the apps divided in to categories, but even if that is installed, it still won't work fully in the user mode.

I like the old Slingshot menu, which is clear-cut. The best menu of this graphical type is the Deepin menu, I found much better than the Unity or the Gnome3 ones. Anyway, I am not going to download the Pear OS8, 32 bit distro, as I can turn the vanilla Ubuntu to work with these little eye-candy additions. The "old" Slingshot and/or the Plank are very simple small apps. The global menu could be created, but sometimes its a headache.64 • Pear 8 (by Wolf on 2013-11-20 10:00:38 GMT from Germany)
Dear Chanath

I have the 64 bit version installed and once by my own mistake I installed a german tax program under wine. I thought it would only be one Program but as it turned out it was a lot of them. This mishab blew my Launcher up (Very many programs installed) to at least 3 pages at the time. Though I deinstalled all of them (it was just supposed to be a test) they stayed in the launcher. So now 4 Pages no categories which is terrrible if one wants to use it. (I don't) So now I wait for Pear 8.1 to give it another try and stay with the aforementioned elementary OS which still hasn't disappointed me and is LTS. I'll be cruising the pear forum trying to help people to adjust cause you are right David Tavares has done an excellent job!

Bye65 • I Love OpenBSD (by Jorge Castillo on 2013-11-20 13:23:42 GMT from Mexico)
@5I think your comment is utter nonsense OSS is immortal as long as there are people willing to develop and maintain it. OpenBSD does not have the mind share of other more popular OSes, but it has and ever growing community. I doubt Red Hat would make an OpenSSH replacement any time soon and if they did they would probably license it under the GPL. The BSDs, Apple and other corporate user would keep using OpenSSH just for the license, even though I don't believe any organization could make a better ssh anytime soon. OpenSSL is completely unrelated to the OpenBSD project this just shows how little you know about OpenBSD.

OpenBSD is not for everyone but if you try it you might like it. If your hardware is supported and you don't need proprietary software OpenBSD is a competitive desktop system. If your hardware is not supported or you need to use proprietary software, you'd be insane to install OpenBSD.66 • re 58, 59 and 65: *BSD (by Jordan on 2013-11-20 14:14:07 GMT from United States)
What have the BSD devs been doing all these years? I have never been able to get it to work as good as most Linux distros on anything, PC or laptop. I keep trying because the blurbs about them as they are released elicit hope, so I've always got a spare hard drive around and give it another shot.

OpenBSD worked fairly well on an old Toshiba laptop, but was not even close to the robust nature of something like PCLinuxOS, Mint, Vector or even Puppy.

It's probably me, not the OS. Some people still love to go into command line and build and tweak etc. I confess to eschewing most of that now that most Linux distros are just so easy "out of the box" to install and configure with items in the menus.67 • OpenSuse 13.1 (by jaws222 on 2013-11-20 15:08:11 GMT from United States)
I got around to putting OpenSuse 13.1 in a Virtualbox last night and so far so good. For some reason my network interface was not connected. I went into Yast>Network Interface and had to configure it. I'm not sure if I had to do that with 12.2. For some reason that version worked right out of the box. Configuring the Samba Server was easier this time around since I'm getting used to it. Also, Gnome 3 looks pretty good! Surprise. I always thought Gnome 3 runs best with OpenSuse for some reason. 13.1 will be supported for 3 years so I hope this works out as well as 12.2 has for me.68 • BSD system approach (by tuxtest on 2013-11-20 15:17:48 GMT from Canada)
@62 I don't think people comment do not like OpenBSD or other BSD system

People raise material deficiencies But also commented on this totally obselete and old fashioned conservative approach. We often hear BSD fans on blog or forum how they could do to attract new users.

The answer to this question is simple: Just doing the jump from the year 1990 to 2013 would be a good user approach.

You said that OpenBSD seems to be the best in hardware.So imagine OpenBSD with Mint or Manjaro in terms of user approach. With these qualities, I think it would be in the top of the list on Distrowatch.

For my part, I agree with @62 I doubt that ever happens. Because they do not really want. It's a boy club and will remain....

The excellent wedding singer has the talent to be a star, but it will change everything to get there. The question ! Is he willing to do ?

You know it's not the best singer who become star.....69 • BSD (by Dave Postles on 2013-11-20 21:48:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
No doubt BSD will not recover the desktop, but I have a lot of respect for GhostBSD. The beta and rc had some issues, but the final release is pretty good and I shall be keeping it on one of my notebooks for the foreseeable future. Any comments about the respective file systems?70 • @60 (by :wq on 2013-11-20 22:36:13 GMT from United States)
"But the problem of PC-BSD is that one version to another stability is uneven."An argument could be made that this applies to a fair number of Linux distros as well.

"PBI system is a good idea but it's really heavy..."As of PC-BSD 9.0, the PBI format has been improved and allows for library sharing and bsdiff updating, amongst other changes.

Some of the criticisms of BSDs echo criticisms made against GNU/Linux, historically or contemporarily. If the GNU/Linux community abandoned all hope to the naysayers many relatively newer GNU/Linux users likely wouldn't be using it today. The BSDs aren't crowding out GNU/Linux or threatening its place at the table (on occassion there is great cooperation between these communities, though sometimes not, particularly on less agnostic solutions), so why not just be content to let them be?

Sony chose FreeBSD 9 as the base for PlayStation 4's Orbis OS. It doesn't matter how permissive the BSD license is, if the underlying code were utter crap, it wouldn't be used. Valve chose Ubuntu 12.04 as the base for its SteamOS. Again, licensing perks aside, if the underlying code were utter crap, it wouldn't be used. Live and let live.71 • Why choose Kubuntu Linux? (by Snowhog on 2013-11-21 03:38:53 GMT from United States)
Disclaimer: I have been using Kubuntu Linux since 2007 (Edgy Eft). I find Kubuntu Linux suites my tastes to a great degree. Why? It has a familiar 'feel' to the other OS I use on a daily basis at work -- Windows Vista. I'm not a Linux fanboi, but neither am I a Windows fanboi. I use Windows at work because that's what my employer has to use. I use Kubuntu Linux at home because that's what I choose use.

Kubuntu Linux is a great Linux OS. Can I say it's better than any of the others out there? No. So, I won't put down the others, but I will heartily promote Kubuntu. If you are familiar with Windows XP (and above), then you will find transitioning to Kubuntu Linux fairly painless. It's a well designed, packaged, and intuitive Linux OS.

So, if you have been contemplating Linux, but have not been sure as to which, of the many variants/flavors that are available, to try, may I suggest Kubuntu Linux? I don't think you will be disappointed. Need help with Kubuntu Linux? Join our active and very friendly forum at https://kubuntuforums.net.

SnowhogKubuntu Forums . Net Administrator72 • OpenSuse 13.1 (by Chanath on 2013-11-21 08:14:39 GMT from Sri Lanka)
I have a little problem with the installation of the OpenSuse 13.1 Gnome Live. The bottom part of page of the creation of partitions cannot be seen, even if I make that window smaller. It is below the bottom of the screen. So, there is no way to direct to the partition to install it. Does anyone know how to get this correct?

I'm also downloading the KDE Live, to see whether I could autohide the bottom panel to get at the buttons. Maybe, I'd autohide the top panel of Gnome, to get at the buttons. My laptop screen is 1366x768 (16:9).73 • advertising (re 71) (by corneliu on 2013-11-21 13:32:04 GMT from Canada)
Why does the comments section contain advertising? There is an area dedicated to advertising on the right side of the page. Everybody knows Kubuntu. The fact that most people chose to use other distros is not because they don't know Kubuntu but because they find the other distros better. Your advertising just gives me another reason not to use Kubuntu. What's the point in moving the Linux users from a distro to another distro? Why don't you go advertise Kubuntu on the Mac or Windows forums?74 • The right place to advertize (by dbrion on 2013-11-21 15:38:52 GMT from France)
Well, if it is like Vista (a pre alpha version of 7 : the latter needs 10 more years to be as comfortable as XP, but is still eats more RAM) maybe there still exist ... Vista fora...75 • @73,74 the true message from 71 is: (by byku on 2013-11-21 16:28:47 GMT from Poland)
"if u don't like Ubuntu and Mark S. use other buntu"

;)76 • @75 (by jaws222 on 2013-11-21 16:40:12 GMT from United States)
I remember the old days when Ubuntu rolled out with Gnome 2 as the DE and everyone was happy. If you wanted to spice it up you threw Compiz on there. If you felt like something different you tried the KDE desktop and got a different experience. If you wanted something less resource intensive you tried XFCE or LXDE. Those were the days.77 • @76 (by byku on 2013-11-21 17:11:08 GMT from Poland)
I'm not using Ubuntu and other buntu (and never was) and i'm happy ;)And i'm using less resource intensive DE/WM. I don't like that all the major DE want to be tool for everything (desktops, tablets and smartphones). I myself don't need to have the same experience on: computer, smartphone, washing machine etc.78 • @76, 77 (by Chanath on 2013-11-22 05:29:57 GMT from Sri Lanka)
There is nothing anyone can do to stop Ubuntu, even if Mark would stop financing it. The amount of developers and user are massive, they'd keep it going. Even, if the people who hate Ubuntu wishes it to die, it won't.

I tried to get OpenSuse 13.1 Gnome installed, but the instaler didn't go further than partition page, as the window went below the screen and there was no way to get to the "Next" button. I downloaded the KDE version, which worked much better in installing, the window stayed within the screen. All Linux distros get installed in my laptop, but this OpenSuse Gnome edition didn't. Its a bug that the OpnSuse developers had not seen. Most of the laptops have 1366x768 resolution today.

Once, I installed the KDE version, I can install Gnome-shell on to it, but that's not the case, the Gnome edition should allow the user to install it any Intel laptop. Do we have this problem with any Ubuntu or any of is derivatives or clones? No! Everyone of them gets installed. I never try a new distro in Virtual Box, but do a clean install. No one can try and give a full review or test a distro in Live mode. It has to be installed. This is a Lenovo laptop, used by a many in the world. I downloaded this Gnome edition twice, checked its integrity, so I can say, at the release, the OpenSuse devs had a bug, which they didn't notice.

I have installed Unity8 in Ubuntu 14.04 and like it very much. It is still in the testing, but it is going to be a hit, just like Android was/is. Ubuntu is coming into this field bit late, but it is bringing in new technology. Other Linux distro/OS makers should do the same. And, instead of shouting/whining at Ubuntu, they should try to port Unity into their systems, giving more chance to their users.

For example, a Gentoo user, or an Arch user, Fedora user, without using Unity in their systems cannot say anything against Unity. Just because they don't like Ubuntu, doesn't mean Unity is bad. Only, they can't use Unity in their own systems, just as they use Gnome, KDE, Openbox, E17 etc.

Live and let live! Try all distros. One of them would suit you, but let the others use what they want, as they are not fools.79 • RE 78 Testing everything before deciding is an error (by dbrion on 2013-11-22 09:51:58 GMT from France)
And your funny whining about a messy story of screen size (in a download, click on buttons "test") illustrates it, beyond caricature.

I did not test cholera.... and managed to avoid it.I have no time to test half-baked, PR relation -oriented "distributions" . I choose some which are likely to work (lkess time spent on PR makes more time dedicated to technical work on the distro side; on the user side, it means more time dedicated to book reading : distro (s)hopping, whithout notions of what GNU linux is -or even, of what a CPU is- is a great time sink: one spends a lot of time trying to tweak, download and whining: this time could have been dedicated to understanding).80 • @79 dbrion (by Chanath on 2013-11-22 10:26:41 GMT from Sri Lanka)
Hello dbrion, if you don't have time to test 'half-baked, PR relation -oriented "distributions"', there is nothing to do here at DWW for you, right?

The DWW gives us information about all kinds of Linux distros, half baked or not. We come here, sometimes everyday, and have a loot at what DWW brings us, and we do download them and test them.

By the way, when you are installing a distro, the distro most times help you to install it with an installation app. This app moves you through certain amount of pages/windows, so you can fill in the blanks and install the distro. And, who is whining here?

If you look at the #72, I asked, whether anyone can give me a hint, a solution. And, I commented on #76 & 77, but not yours. I brought up the installation problem of freshly released OpenSuse Gnome edition, as an example, to emphasize that Ubuntu or any clone of Ubuntu does not have such a problem. You just don't release a final distro with such bugs.

Now, dbrion, do you know what it means, when an open window goes below the screen and the bottom part of the screen cannot be brought up? Have you noticed that all such windows have "Cancel" and "OK" buttons on the bottom, usually on the bottom right hand corner? So, if one cannot get at that bottom part of the window, isn't it a mess?

You see, dbrion, you want to fight everyone writing here, but do you realize that we, the users love to visit the DWW and try out as many distros as we like? The DWW keeps us on our toes, giving us the newest news about the Linux world and the distros. If you don't really like to hop distros and test them, what is there for you to do here?81 • Logical time management (by dbrion on 2013-11-22 10:34:43 GMT from France)
"If you look at the #72, I asked, whether anyone can give me a hint, a solution. "Things are getting funnier and funnier, as you are much more likely,even in a half logical world, to get some help ... from the O'Suse fora ... (oh : you wrote "there is nothing to do here at DWW for you, right?").

And I have good Fedora(s) installed -and I can a) read menusb) select distros to install and .... things -lets us be kind- not to install: time saved by selection is dedicated to reading, therefore I very seldom beg for help -and not here : I would whine help does not come, which is time-consuming, too-).

Who is talking about logical time management here? We come here to look at what new distros are there is the Linux world. That's why this DWW is there, and for such a long time. This is the 534th Issue of DWW.

So, if you have a nice Fedora, then stay there. No one is troubling you to get another distro. BUT, if you like the Linux world, you'd download some of the distros and test them. And, that's why we are here in the DWW almost everyday.

Now, read this:"Finally we did it! Mageia 4 beta 1 has been, for sure, the most difficult release we had to face since the beginning of Mageia project. Lots of good and bad reasons here and again some improvements to be done on our development process."

Don't you think, you should at least give a try. checking out this Mageia 4 Beta? How can you say, this Mageia is not good, if you don't try it? Do you feel the bubbling enthusiasm of the Mageia developers?

You are a very funny man, I might even think as a troll, because you don't try any other distro, but write provoking others. Do you understand that this website, the Distrowatch is the face of the Linux world, and we do come here to find out about NEW distros? Some people have Windows, and quite happy about it, and won't come here. You are just like one of them. This is for us, the distro hoppers, shoppers, and we like it!

And, time is something we know how to manage! By the way, to downlaod a 1GB distro takes just 10-15 minutes, and that happens behind the scenes, and to boot it even less. Usually the Install time is the most jolly time.

God luck with your chosen distro.83 • 78 • @76, 77 (by Chanath (by mandog on 2013-11-22 12:00:50 GMT from Peru)
Again you talk without doing any research Unity can and is installed by many arch users. Ubuntu is turning into a clone of closed source by making it almost impossible to use there source code. this will only work for a limited time they have already backtracked with Gnome desktop in a attempt of world domination of Linux,84 • @78 (by byku on 2013-11-22 12:26:54 GMT from Poland)
"Other Linux distro/OS makers should do the same. And, instead of shouting/whining at Ubuntu, they should try to port Unity into their systems, giving more chance to their users."

Yes we all are simply jealous and lazy to port Unity ;(85 • Chanath and dbrion (by Kazlu on 2013-11-22 12:56:01 GMT from France)
Come on guys, please take just a step back on your argument. From an external point of view, it seems obvious to me that you both are GNU/Linux enthusiasts that are simply interested in different aspects of it. Chanath likes to experiment different, shall I say ready to use but still tweakable distros when dbrion prefers sticking with his distro and go deeper into it to eventually tweak it. In a way, you both explore solutions to have an OS that fits you by using dirrefent methods. There isn't necessarily a better of worse solution, as long as you enjoy what you do and you succeed in having an OS that suits you.

I can get some of your enthusiasm myself. I am used to Ubuntu, it is a reliable place for me, though I am not using Unity. I actually think there are some good design ideas, wise screen occupation management, but I dislike the few possibilities of tweaking it, a too much centralized systray and above all it is way to slow on my not-so-young-yet-not-very-old machine. Fine, I am using LXDE and Xfce depending on my machine and my mood, they suit me perfectly. I though like to experiment Unity that is still on my computer just for fun, to see where it has gone. I enjoy trying something different on occasion, be it a distro or a DE. But I won't try them all. For example, I won't try Arch, Manjaro AND Chakra, I first gave Manjaro a try to experiment with a rolling release distro for a while. It is quite nice, maybe some day I will dislike some aspects of Manjaro and be willing to switch to Arch, maybe not. That's the idea, I try and enjoy it, it really brings something new that I couldn't discover if I stayed with the same distro (Manjaro actually got me to understand some new things about GNU/Linux), but I don't make trying distros my absolute goal in order to find the perfect match.

Trying new things, like a new distro with a different philosophy, is quite fun and I like doing this on occasion. However, I will always remember that sentence of Barry Kauler's page about Puppy Linux, talking about his distro compared to other of the same category : "If the hat fits, wear it'.86 • @ 84 & 84 (by Chanath on 2013-11-22 12:57:38 GMT from Sri Lanka)
Mandog, sure it had become quite hard to use the Unity source code by other OS makers. But, is it a mistake of the Ubuntu devs, or the other OS makers? Unity is a overlay over Gnome 3, and at the beginning of Unity it had quite a problem with the Gnome 3. Unity broke and all started cursing Ubuntu, but slowly Unity evolved. No one is demanding the Ubuntu users to use only Unity. There are many other flavours around, and some of them are backed by Ubuntu. E17 was not there, but Jeff is doing real good work making Bodhi. Now, can anyone say Bodhi is not good? Elementary OS is based on Ubuntu. And, they don't use Unity, but the Ubuntu base.

That's the difference. If you want the newest source code, you can find it in the Launchpad. unity_7.0.0daily13.04.18~13.04.orig.tar.gz

Co może być najpopularnym linuksem w Polsce? czy to Ubuntu, czy co innego?87 • Greek characters and O'BSD (by dbrion on 2013-11-22 14:19:49 GMT from France)
"Don't you think, you should at least give a try. checking out this Mageia 4 Beta?"My keyboad does not support greek characters.As I have working software (by shunning away alpha, beta -even omega, if it were- versions : there are enough issues with stable ones, and not giving a try to "projects" Intel does not support http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20131014 -and I suppose/bet a world wide circuit manufacturer is more skilled in evaluating "projects" than ....a bunch of fanbois...-),

I sometimes beta test some software parts (though I know many people have better methods and are faster; at least, they have methods and I hope I have, too). Anyway, it has nothing to do with downloading because it was announced and telling "it (does not) work(s)".

BTW, the most interesting part of this weeks DWW was the fact that OpenBSD (I noticed Monsieur Smith managed to have it working in *two* environments : sometimes, this cannot be achieved with a GNUlinux distribution...) was ported into BeagleBone : as their price has been halved within one year, BBBs become competitive with Rpi (two ARM cards aiming hobbyists, students *and* industry :Arduino 8 bit has evolved from an hobbyist platform to industry oriented -and industry oriented cards are cheaper!- ) and they offer better connectivity than RPi (more pins to open it to the outer world -a PC cannot do it fast, or it is *very* expensive-; one does not depend on moving parts to boot), slightly higher speeds. People playing with video might prefer RPi, though.

People using BBB have then choice between :

a) no OS (for very fast, very repetitive but perhaps simple tasks, with no jitter ) as 8/16 bits microcontrollers often do (and people are accustomed to such SW minimalist architectures: it may run 30 time faster than a typical 8 bits, or be more complicated -although complexity is limited by users programming skills/available time)..

b)Open BSD (might be simpler/faster than GNUlinux; Thanks Jesse Smith, I learned it had good documentation).

c) GNU/linuxen ( it is shipped, on a safe support, with a Gentoo/CLFS inspired linux: people might find their favorite distribution on it, though nobody knows whether it is officially supported). Documentation is likely to be excellent, AFAIK.88 • eternel buntu discussion (by tuxtest on 2013-11-22 14:29:04 GMT from Canada)
IT is fun to see here on the comment page how each week the discussion end up turning around and Buntu Unity.I suggest everybody to open a discussion forum with one post Buntu/Unity where all make a war argument until the last fanboy who remain behind are keyboard.

If you like Unity good for you use it ! But f you don't like well use something else you have many choice.

Useless and sterile endless discussion.

I will borrow a phrase from Martin Luther King:

I have a dream

One day, Cannonial make the decision to drop Ubuntu, these say I'd be the most happiest man of the world for one thing. Finally we can move on. At the same time finished the eternal stupid Buntu/Unity discussions.

For children there is also an eternal discussion and you all know is: My father is more stronger than your father...........

For users that want to switch from Windows still the most popular distro is Ubuntu (whisper marketing). But currently when Microsoft wants to make system search option in Windows 8.1 similar to Unity Dash some people choose Mint against Ubuntu because they don't want to escape from Window to Linux and get the same on start.

I've noticed too that there are more and more users that want try all flavors of Linux and want to find the best distro for them (their computer). Some users are switching from Ubuntu to Debian/Arch/Mageia too (mostly because they don't like the last PR moves of Canonical).

I'm myself using major/old distros like Slackware, Debian, Arch with light DE/WM (currently i'm testing some tiling WM and start to like them, i have plenty of computers with old Celeron processors below 1GHz and all major DE are too big and i have some RPis and it is another point against big DE not only Unity).90 • @81 (by jaws222 on 2013-11-22 15:02:02 GMT from United States)
"Too much distro(s)hopping could affect one's health."

LOL! I won't argue there. I've cut back on my distro hopping. For me anyway, it's much easier to put a distro in Virtualbox and look at for about half an hour to get a feel and make a decision on whether or not it's worthy of putting on an hdd. To each his own.91 • 86 • @ 84 & 84 (by Chanath (by mandog on 2013-11-22 15:21:09 GMT from Peru)
It falls on the shoulders of Canonical I,m afraid, Ubuntu is using out of date version of gnome as there base fedora/suse/etc has moved on. That was also the problem with Cinnamon and the reason they had to become gnome independent, they could not give the real world cinnamon as was outdated using the code from Canonical that would mean one version for Ubuntus and the other for the real world of Linux. Unity on arch is a lot of work as unity deps are out of date. So it not the rest of Linux.92 • @ 87, 89, 90 (by Chanath on 2013-11-22 15:59:09 GMT from Sri Lanka)
"Don't you think, you should at least give a try. checking out this Mageia 4 Beta?"My keyboad does not support greek characters.Dbrion, didn't know Mageia 4 beta is in Greek!

Byku, how many computer shops sell the so-called OS-less, but Ubuntu laptops in Poland? Do you find any Fedora laptops, or any other laptops? Isn't those OS-less laptops, either DOS or Ubuntu? I made a few mistakes in that line, but I am quite fluent in that language.

Mandog, maybe you are right. But, I've never heard of Mercedes helping Fiat to make a better car. All these Linux-based OS makers don't tell each other how they make them, right? There are parts sort of proprietary in all OSs, for example the base of the Arch, or Gentoo cannot be broken into, so say Fedora can make use of it. Am I right?93 • @80 (by jaws222 on 2013-11-22 16:03:33 GMT from United States)
"The DWW gives us information about all kinds of Linux distros, half baked or not. We come here, sometimes everyday, and have a loot at what DWW brings us, and we do download them and test them."

This is true, but also the people who post on the forum here are a good source of information. For instance, a few weeks back I read the DWW and there were quite a few here talking about Point Linux and how good and stable it was. I did not bother reading the review. In other words, most of the time Linux users know a good, stable distro when they see it. I put it in Virtualbox and boy was I impressed. This is a great little stable distro and easy to use. Up til then I'd never heard of Point Linux but now I'll never forget it.94 • @ 87 Dbrion, should you help or not? (by Chanath on 2013-11-22 16:08:51 GMT from Sri Lanka)
If we get something free, we have to help them too.

This is what Mageia dev ask:Still beta 1 isos are now available for tests and we need your feedbacks to improve and fasten the coming Mageia 4.

This is what Linux Mint ask:We look forward to receiving your feedback. Thank you for using Linux Mint and have a lot of fun testing the release candidate!

I am sure your beloved Fedora also asked something like that from the potential users. Did you help them out by testing the "development" releases of Fedora?95 • @72, 78 (by :wq on 2013-11-22 16:12:08 GMT from United States)
Chanath,

I do not have access to a Lenovo which I can use for testing, but I downloaded the openSUSE 12.3 GNOME live image and proceeded to install it on a notebook of another make which has a display resolution of 1366 × 768 in an effort to reproduce the issue you encountered. Unfortunately I was not able to match it, either by choosing "Installation" from the boot menu, or by booting the live session, and then running the installer. If you were running the live installer, did you try maximizing (Super+Up) the installer window? I could actually make all the buttons out whether the window was maximized or not, though the lowermost buttons where partially obscured when the window wasn't maximized. If you decide to give it another go, it might be worth selecting "Installation" from the boot menu, if you didn't go that route last time.96 • correction (by :wq on 2013-11-22 16:13:23 GMT from United States)
^ Make that 13.1, not 12.397 • 92,94 Gems and pearls (by dbrion on 2013-11-22 16:35:59 GMT from France)
"I am sure your beloved Fedora also asked something like that from the potential users. "

This is not a matter of looove ( sometimes happens between human beings; maybe between humans and deities: this term -love- is symptomatic of the distro(s)hopping syndrom, in an advanced, brain affecting, stage) : it is a matter of being usable (i.e having applications I need) or not (unripe distros are supposed not to be ... as they claim they are not)....As neither Mageia nor Hammint ship what *****applications****I need (and compiling from source is unpleasant on USB sticks), why should I bother with two -out of n- distros (maybe Mageia will be interesting within one year, if they wisely come with a one year interrelease lag, compatible with their weak resources: I'll wait another year ).

Well, Greece should protest with the way half baked distros/uripe fruits are named....98 • @95 & 97 (by Chanath on 2013-11-22 17:09:21 GMT from Sri Lanka)
Wq, thanks, I didn't think of installing right away from the boot menu, but from the live sate. I'd give try and let you know. If it worked for you in that resolution, it might work for me. I'd do that tomorrow.

Dbrion, no more arguments with you. If you don't help out by testing, even your beloved Fedora, there is nothing we can do for you. And, there is nothing you can find here at Distrowatch too. The name itself says Watching the distros. We, the distro hoppers, shoppers or lovers would come here again and again, download some of them and use them try them out, and even post some bug reports. You are just a user, who won't help out, but criticize anything and anyone. No, I won't reply to you again. And, I'd just skip your comments in the future. Its no use at all to read them, as they are more like trolling.99 • @92 (by byku on 2013-11-22 17:57:59 GMT from Poland)
"Byku, how many computer shops sell the so-called OS-less, but Ubuntu laptops in Poland? Do you find any Fedora laptops, or any other laptops? Isn't those OS-less laptops, either DOS or Ubuntu?"

Almost all PC/Laptops from big sellers are with Windows 8. People who use Linux bring their favourite Live distro and test it before they buy new computer. I've asked many times the clerks about PC with any Linux or without any system but the answer is almost the same: we have/had one PC without any system or People wants Windows so we give them Windows. But you can buy a computer made from any parts you wish in small computer shops. But as always people who prefer Windows will install Windows (and most small computers sellers are Windows users too) and Linux users will install Linux. Some years ago there were some netbooks with special (branded) versions of Linux (not Ubuntu) from Acer and Asus. And of course you can buy computer with Linux on-line on e.g. http://www.emperorlinux.com/

Btw. buying computer with enough power to use modern and big DE is not a problem for me. I just like those smaller ones and i don't want to throw away my old but still working computers. I remember those days of Amiga and Windows 98 and for me every big DE is something that I really don't need to be happy ;)100 • Beating a dead horse. (by LinuxMan on 2013-11-22 20:07:51 GMT from United States)
@78,Sad to say that it's like beating a dead horse. You get no reaction at all except a lot of stink. People are not going to be happy unless they can get in their little groups and sound nerdy. There are always going to be people who hate a certain distro for no good reason. All they do is make themselves look foolish. Like the ones who say, "I have never used (insert distro name here) and I never will because I know that it's no good." Sounds real smart, doesn't it.101 • eternel buntu discussion (by Bill on 2013-11-22 22:09:09 GMT from United States)
@88 - Oh come on now. You know if we get rid of the unity/gnome ubuntu debate, there will only be 5 posts a week, and those about Jessie's review and the lack of detailed hardware specs. What fun would that be? Also, I know one thing for sure, my father's usb stick is larger than, well you know.102 • @87, BBB (by Adam Williamson on 2013-11-23 02:49:55 GMT from Canada)
Just FYI - the BBB is intended to be a supported platform for Fedora 20 ARM, and the ARM team has been working pretty hard to get it working properly. We thought it'd be working right from early Alpha, but it turns out it needed more work than expected. For Beta, it works fine, but HDMI output does not work yet: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Architectures/ARM/F20/Installation#For_the_BeagleBone_Black .103 • @99, 100, 101 (by Chanath on 2013-11-23 06:11:47 GMT from Sri Lanka)
Byku, there are OS-less laptops available in many shops in Poland, and I didn't say anything about Windows 8 ones, and I was not speaking about small shops, but the large ones too. And, I too remember those days of Atari and also the 286, 386 days, and all those computer bazaars. That too in Warsaw, and many other cities. Right now, if you want a non-Windows 7, 8 laptops, you get only Ubuntu ones, the shop keepers/dealers/technical section don't offer any other Linux. Anyway, not many know about Poland, so you and I can say anything we want.

Linuxman, the stink always goes with the one, who makes the stink. People read what they want to read, but don't read what I wrote at the end; "Live and let live! Try all distros. One of them would suit you, but let the others use what they want, as they are not fools."

Bill, you are absolutely right!104 • openSUSE 13.1 live GNOME - the good, a niggle or two (by gnomic on 2013-11-23 07:42:11 GMT from New Zealand)
Well hooray. openSUSE have released a version that boots to the desktop. And runs NetworkManager. Too bad it can't do 3G internet without having to twiddle with settings beyond ticking boxes.

But why oh why does Cheese fail to produce a picture when started from the icon, but actually work from the cli? Does anybody test this stuff? Even a little?

New word of the decade -- worsification. That's when stuff comes out said to be better than before, but actually turns out to be more complicated in use and more fragile than the old stuff.105 • @103 (by byku on 2013-11-23 07:53:36 GMT from Poland)
"Byku, there are OS-less laptops available in many shops in Poland."It depends in what city you live. For Windows people (most people in Poland are Windows people because schools are using Windows on IT lessons and all goverment agencies are using Windows) there is only Windows - you cant sell them laptop/computer without system or with Ubuntu. For me computer system is everybody's independent choice. If you sell computer with Linux to person who don't want to learn more and is lazy to learn new things - he will be enemy of Linux. I've many time adviced people to use Linux but now they switched to Windows again and said that Linux is not for them.106 • 3D print (by zykoda on 2013-11-23 08:07:55 GMT from United Kingdom)
Which disco is currently best for 3D printing hardware/software support?107 • @105 (by byku on 2013-11-23 08:08:16 GMT from Poland)
I live in a small town. And there is no Ubuntu laptops (but u can buy one via net). Even if they have Ubuntu laptops it no problem for me to buy any laptop and instal on any distro i like. I think myself that Linux is not for every one. And still some people are buing Ubuntu laptops because they are cheaper that those with Windows. They install Windows (mostly pirated) on those laptops. U can make all laptops with Linux but if people don't find their favourite apps on Linux they choose Windows or Apple. I'm myself work as programmer so Linux for me is a good and independent choice.108 • @107 (by byku on 2013-11-23 08:17:47 GMT from Poland)
I think that i know why you Chanath were asking me about Ubuntu Laptops. The same argument give always Ubuntu people - "Ubuntu is great and promote Linux because Ubuntu is almost the one distro on laptops in stores". But this is not important which distro is in shops. My whole family use Linux because i'm using Linux. And they use my distro of choice. For them is not important what is in the shop.109 • @106 (by byku on 2013-11-23 08:42:26 GMT from Poland)
For 3D printing you can try Fedora.

Interestingly, the guy who made Apple is also a Pole, though an American. Poland makes lot of apps too.

No, Byku, I am not saying that Ubuntu is the only OS, or even it is the best. All I know is that the users of Windows know only Ubuntu as the "other" OS, some even don't know it is Linux based. But, lot of Polish users know about Linux and the Open Source.

I like Ubuntu, because I can play with it, manipulate it, make my own distros. For example, I don't need to install ZorinOS, but make from the vanilla Ubuntu. You just can't do that with OpenSuse for example, for you'd have to use their Studio. You can do the same things with Debian, but its base is so old, the kernels are old and doesn't have something like ppas, oe as the Arch has Aurs.

You see, I've been using Ubuntu from 4.10, and I have used all kinds of Linux based OSs. Fedora is Open Source, but we just can't use its mother distro, Red Hat, as it is to be paid for. And, that's one reason I don't want Fedora. I remember the old days, when Red Hat was selling cds/soft disks. But, when Ubuntu came, it went out to send free cds to anyone around this Earth. And, that has to be appreciated.

Some people argue that Ubuntu is not going to use Wayland, but as a distro maker, Ubuntu wants to promote itself, so the Unity and the Mir. Only, later Unity was bundled into one app, and we can't break it and look into it. But, can we break into the Red Hat base, even if it is there in Fedora? Or Arch, or Gentoo base?111 • @110 (by byku on 2013-11-23 10:52:47 GMT from Poland)
"Well, Byku, if you live ina small town, of course, there are no large computer shops, but in all the large cities, they have such shops and the OS-less computers."

As i said for me isn't problem to buy computer with Windows and erase it from HD. Many people wants computer now and don't want waste fuel to go to bigger city and buy laptop without system or with Ubuntu.

"Interestingly, the guy who made Apple is also a Pole, though an American. Poland makes lot of apps too."

If you think about Woz. Yep he has Polish roots. Tramiel from Atari too. Polish nation had not good history - we lost independence many time - so we are nation of emigrants (any some people could find Polish blood in their family ;))

"No, Byku, I am not saying that Ubuntu is the only OS, or even it is the best. All I know is that the users of Windows know only Ubuntu as the "other" OS, some even don't know it is Linux based."

They know OSX too (and some use Hackintoshes).

"But, lot of Polish users know about Linux and the Open Source."

Yep. Most Polish IT magazines even if are Windows only put on their cover disks various Linux distros. But for normal user there is only Windows. I never saw a man in shop that is asking for other system (of course in my town).

"You can do the same things with Debian, but its base is so old, the kernels are old and doesn't have something like ppas, oe as the Arch has Aurs."

Stable is old. But unstable is almost as new as in Ubuntu. I myself don't have problem to compile kerner and programs for myself, so Ubuntu isn't only one solution for me.

"Fedora is Open Source, but we just can't use its mother distro, Red Hat, as it is to be paid for."

I don't have problem with this. Everybody could sell Linux. On DW there are many Linuxes that you have to paid for. People don't have problem with price of Windows so they should don't have problem with any commercial Linux. If Canonical will sell one day their own Linux with their own blobs i will not have any problems with it too.

"And, that's one reason I don't want Fedora."

It is a community edition. So for me it isn't problem.

"I remember the old days, when Red Hat was selling cds/soft disks."

I had my first RH from polish IT magazines (if i remember well it was before year 2000). It cost the same price as always with cover CD. And if i remember well i could download RH from their ftp servers.

"But, when Ubuntu came, it went out to send free cds to anyone around this Earth. And, that has to be appreciated."

I've downloaded Ubuntu in 2006 from their page. So for me it wasn't something spectacular. But of course i understand that for people from countries with weak internet infrastructure it was good (if they ever heard about Linux and Ubuntu, but if not those free CDs wasn't any game changer for Linux).

"Some people argue that Ubuntu is not going to use Wayland, but as a distro maker, Ubuntu wants to promote itself, so the Unity and the Mir. Only, later Unity was bundled into one app, and we can't break it and look into it. But, can we break into the Red Hat base, even if it is there in Fedora? Or Arch, or Gentoo base?"

In my opinion puzzles like: kernel, display server and DE/WM should be independent and usable on every distro without any problems and triks. But it is only my own opinion.112 • 110 Another fanbois gem (by dbrion on 2013-11-23 13:58:57 GMT from France)
" Fedora is Open Source, but we just can't use its mother distro, Red Hat, as it is to be paid for."CentOS andScientific Linux are free clones (BTW : smart -there is an entry for a definition of such term in good dictionaries- ) admins use CentOS (or SL) for testing, before buying RH if people are satisfied).It just needs reading skills -not stinking ones to have a look at:http://www.centos.org/ where they proudly claim to be RH excellent clones113 • Thanks 102 (by dbrion on 2013-11-23 14:07:23 GMT from France)
Thanks for the info (BTW : I (Google at least) did not find O BSD for BB **B**, there are for BB ).As Beagle Bones are not only meant for low specs "PCs", but also for HW lovers ( hobbyists and maybe later industry), HDMI does not seem to be a huge issue (else, they would buy RPi)...114 • @ 111 Byku (by Chanath on 2013-11-23 16:38:41 GMT from Sri Lanka)
All that is true. I remember the time well before 2000, somewhere around 86-87, when I first bought the Atari for my son, and he was just 6 years old. We played with that too, went to the computer bazaars to find new programs and games. It was my son and his firiends who showed me Linux later, but I didn't want to get into coding. Stayed with Windows for quite a long time, and then left it slowly for Linux.

That Atari is still there in the basement, along with the 386. Have a good day! Pozdrawiam serdecznie!115 • Please list EFI/GPT support in your features grid (by littlenoodles on 2013-11-23 16:50:56 GMT from United States)
It does little good to search Distrowatch for a great system, only to find (sometimes disastrously) that the distro you chose won't install on your hardware. I had a distro's installer overwrite existing partitions when I had told it to use different ones - apparently distros that don't properly support GPT don't even bother to warn you.

While cataloguing support for specific devices is surely beyond the scope of Distrowatch, pretty much any PC you buy these days will be partitioned with the GPT scheme and use EFI booting. It would be extremely helpful if your distro features grid included in its checklist whether the distro can be installed on this kind of PC at all - with or without disabling secure-EFI. Some distros can only be installed if you wipe what the machine came with and revert it to MBR booting. That's not viable for most users, but at least it'd be nice to know upfront whether it's a requirement.116 • @104 Cheese (by pfb on 2013-11-23 17:24:30 GMT from United States)
I find it worse. On my AMD 64 single core, Cheese locks up the CPU (from either menu, or CLI) requiring a hard reset . Kamoso works just fine. Since I am running KDE, I find it peculiar that 13.1 would install with Cheese rather than Kamoso. This appears to be a totally unnecessary speed bump.117 • @112, 114 (by byku on 2013-11-23 17:35:54 GMT from Poland)
Scientific Linux will be used on Polish Supercomputer (500 TFLOPS, it should reach TOP100).-------

I didn't have Atari myself. But my friends had (i don't remember if they bought them in Pewex or on baazar in Warsaw ). There were Polish magazines in the late 80' (like Bajtek) that published listings for BASIC (Atari, Spectrum, Amstrad).

"Pozdrawiam serdecznie!"Też pozdrawiam (your Polish is very good, have you studied in Poland?)

PS. The owner of Dilmah was in Poland a few weeks ago. It is very nice man and produces nice tea ;)118 • @ 117 Byku (by Chanath on 2013-11-23 18:37:37 GMT from Sri Lanka)
Oh, I bought lots of Bajtek for my son those days. They are still in the basement. Isuppose, my son don't feel like throwing them away or even giving them away. I had Spectrum too, I mean bought for my son.

I didn't study in Poland, and I am a self taught, samouk. I worked for a long time in Poland, a jestem obywatelem Polski. Kiedyś się spotkamy w kraju. Na razie cześć! Pozdrawiam!119 • OpenMandriva Lx 2013.0 and Steam (by :wq on 2013-11-23 23:28:18 GMT from United States)
I do not know the rational as to why OpenMandriva has no repos enabled by default (particularly seeing as how the last release of ROSA Desktop Fresh didn't have this issue); I can see an argument for not having potentially legally-encumbered repos enabled, but not zero repos- I am open to the possibility that there is a good rational behind this, but I have not read it. When adding the default set of repos, no 32-bit repos are added. I encountered this when I installed Steam and had to manually add the required i586 repos. Looking at the OpenMandriva site as I write this, there is now a forum post linked on the front page from someone else who encountered this while installing Skype. I'm not sure whether this should be chalked up to being an oversight or a reasoned choice.

While such distributions aren't my cup of tea, I will say that with the impending ROSA Software Center on the horizon, ROSA Desktop (Fresh or LTS), is slowly developing into one of the nicer distros for new converts or casual users. I think ROSA Desktop and Ubuntu-based Linux Deepin are beginning to establish themselves this way, though obviously they still have some work and polishing to do.120 • 57 • 02 • OpenSUSE (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2013-11-24 01:32:23 GMT from United States)
Looks like where there's a will, there may be a way: PenDriveLinux's YUMI just helped boot OpenSUSE 13.1 KdeLive from a multiboot stick.

(Did I mention there's a Linux (.deb, (source).tar.gz) version?)121 • Calculate Linux (by Dave Postles on 2013-11-24 20:07:16 GMT from United Kingdom)
The only English option is US English and US keyboard!122 • OpenMandriva (by Dave Postles on 2013-11-24 20:17:54 GMT from United Kingdom)
@ 119 wq

Yes, that's always been a problem with recent Mandriva - 'updating the media' to access the repositories. I don't know why.

The other issue is rebooting to establish the partitioning. When PCLOS was based closely on Madirva, it was necessary to reboot in the same way, but recent PCLOS has eradicated that issue. It must be confusing for people using OpenMadnriva for the first time.123 • @123 (by :wq on 2013-11-25 00:05:53 GMT from United States)
The first few releases of ROSA Desktop also shared the repo issue, but it was resolved with the last release, so I don't know why OpenMandriva didn't inherit this change. The most recent release of the 64-bit version of ROSA also (rightly, IMO) enabled 32-bit repos (in addition to the 64-bit repos), which is not the default behavior when adding media on the 64-bit version of OpenMandriva. As far as dependencies go for programs like Steam, I think they could get by with just enabling the "Main" 32-bit set of repos. I also wish they would change the default filter for rpmdrake from "Packages with GUI" back to "All". I believe the filter was changed from "All" to "Packages with GUI" in 2008; regardless, I think "All" is the better setting for most users. The systemd command "systemctl isolate multi-user.target" (or "systemctl isolate runlevel3.target") also didn't seem to be working on OpenMandriva.124 • last comment (by :wq on 2013-11-25 00:12:14 GMT from United States)
Should have been @122. Man, I'm sleep deprived. Misspellings, lack of alertness behind the wheel, etc. I even called my girlfriend by an ex's name twice in the last few days. Not good.125 • BSD (by Dude on 2013-11-25 01:03:15 GMT from United States)
I'm a bit tired of the BSD reviews. I agree that BSD isn't ever going to make it on the desktop. How about revisiting Netrunner(Jesse did a review back in July 2012). I just installed it and first impressions are very good. It's large and it has a lot of stuff, but it's good. I hope I will still feel this way in a month...Oh, if you do decide to review another BSD, you should do DragonFly BSD because it's the only one doing anything interesting IMHO.

Karamad was an openSUSE-based Iranian distribution. With support for the Persian language and other enhancements depicting Iran's history and culture, the distribution was designed for Iranian users and those interested in the language, history and culture of ancient Persia.